Steve Irwin is Dead.

Steve Irwin is dead - He died from being stabbed by a giant manta ray a few days ago. Steve Irwin was swimming in Australia, like he always does, when he was stabbed by this creature. The creature pierced straight through Steve Irwin's heart, and like a true hero, he pulled it out, then died.

Steve Irwin was a hero. He was a Crocodile Hunter, and he took a lot of risks - But he lived. Some say he deserved to die - What a horrible thing to say. Sure, he may have taken many upon many of deadly and terrifying risks, but he knew what he was doing. He was a professional, and he will always remain The Crocodile Hunter. Nobody can compare to him - He was one of a kind, and he did his job with happiness and amusement. Some say he is an idiot or a moron - But clearly he was never such a person. Steve Irwin will always live on in all of us, as The Crocodile Hunter.

Re: Steve Irwin is Dead.

It is very sad indeed. But when you take that many risks, then given enough time, something WILL go wrong. It is a mathematical certainty. What I'm not sure about is, was he persuing this manta ray? Or trying to observe it? Or did it just swim out of no where and stab him?

Re: Steve Irwin is Dead.

mikau wrote:

What I'm not sure about is, was he persuing this manta ray? Or trying to observe it? Or did it just swim out of no where and stab him?

Shortly after 11:00 a.m. AEST (01:00 UTC) on 4 September 2006, Irwin was fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray barb whilst snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef, at Batt Reef, which is located off the coast of Port Douglas in Queensland. Irwin was in the area filming his own documentary, to be called The Ocean's Deadliest, but weather had stalled filming. Irwin decided to take the opportunity to film some shallow water shots for a segment in the television program his daughter Bindi was hosting, when, according to his friend and colleague, John Stainton, he swam too close to one of the animals. "He came on top of the stingray and the stingray's barb went up and into his chest and put a hole into his heart," said Stainton, who was on board Irwin's boat the Croc One.

The events were caught on camera, and a copy of the footage was handed to the Queensland Police. After reviewing the footage of the incident and speaking to the cameraman who recorded it, marine documentary filmmaker and former spearfisherman Ben Cropp speculated that the stingray "felt threatened because Steve was alongside and there was the cameraman ahead." In such a case, the stingray responds to danger by automatically flexing the serrated barb on its tail (which can measure up to 25 cm or about 10 inches in length) in an upward motion.

Cropp said Irwin had accidentally boxed in the animal. "It stopped and twisted and threw up its tail with the spike, and it caught him in the chest. It's a defensive thing. It's like being stabbed with a dirty dagger." The stinging of Irwin by the bull ray was "a one-in-a-million thing," Cropp told Time magazine. "I have swum with many rays, and I have only had one do that to me."

Some reports have claimed that Irwin pulled the barb out of his chest shortly before losing consciousness. Irwin's colleague John Stainton suggested that this was the case when he first described the video to the media, saying, "Steve came over the top of the ray and the tail came up, and spiked him here [in the chest], and he pulled it out and the next minute he's gone." In a susbsequent CNN interview, however, he denied that Irwin pulled out the barb, insisting that the anecdote was "absolute rubbish". It is thought, in the absence of a coroner's report, that a combination of the toxins and the puncture wound from the barb caused Irwin to die of cardiac arrest, with most damage being inflicted by tears to arteries or other main blood vessels. It is also possible that he died quickly as a result of a punctured aorta. Until the coroner's report is released, however, the precise cause of Irwin's death remains conjecture.

Crew members aboard his boat called the emergency services in the nearest city of Cairns and administered CPR as they rushed the boat to nearby the Low Islets to meet a rescue helicopter. Medical staff pronounced Irwin dead when they arrived a short time later. According to Dr. Ed O'Loughlin, who treated Irwin, "it became clear fairly soon that he had non-survivable injuries. . . . He had a penetrating injury to the left front of his chest. He had lost his pulse and wasn't breathing."

Irwin's body was flown to a morgue in Cairns. His wife, Terri Irwin, was on a walking tour in Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park in Tasmania at the time, and returned via a private plane from Devonport to the Sunshine Coast with their two children.

As of 1996, only seventeen worldwide fatalities had been recorded due to stingrays, and the attack on Irwin is believed to be the only fatality from a stingray ever captured on film.